His Words
by cyndil1
Summary: Kate realizes the power of Rick's words


**Title: His Words**

**Rating: M-for sexual suggestiveness; just to be on the safe side.**

**Summary: Kate realizes the power of Rick's words.**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them—couldn't do them justice if I did—I just like to play with them a bit.**

**A/N: Set post mid-season 5 or beyond. This hasn't been BETA'd so any mistakes are mine and mine alone. **

**Reviews are welcome and nice ones really feed the muses.**

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His words. She'd loved them long before they met, had let them whisper life into a soul that was taking its last gasping breath.

She'd fallen for them just weeks after her mother's death, with the grief still new and raw and bleeding. The sadness and anger and hurt often coalescing into an emotion so strong she felt as if it were swallowing her whole. And she was left to cope with that on her own, because not only had she lost her mom but, day by day, she was losing her dad as well. More often than not, he was passed out on the sofa, smelling of the liquor that he'd used to transport himself from a living hell to a place where he didn't have to feel the pain. A part of her understood his need to hide from it, but another part of her resented the fact that he did so at her expense. She needed him; needed him to talk to, to cry with, and to mourn with. But since he'd made himself unavailable, she survived the only way she knew how, she pushed it all back down, deep inside. But too often it pushed right back, erupting in tears or anger or merely a restlessness that buzzed through every nerve ending. It was that restlessness that had her wandering, drifting from room to room, feeling herself no more than a mere shadow slipping through a house that no longer felt like home. Her mother was gone, and yet, remnants of her still remained, fragments that only amplified her departure; a picture of the three of them displayed in a macaroni enhanced, garishly painted frame Kate had made in the second grade, a comb and her favorite bottle of perfume sitting haphazardly on a bathroom shelf, and her favorite heels still by the front door, as if she'd slipped them off only moments before. The shards of her mother's life were even more abundant in her bedroom; an old, much loved, bathrobe thrown over the back of a chair, the beautiful hand carved jewelry box that her Dad had given to her on their fifth wedding anniversary, and the tower of books she'd been planning on reading stacked on her bedside table; another thing her mother would no longer be able to do.

Once again overwhelmed by the barrage of emotions surging through her, Kate sank down and curled up on her mother's side of the bed. The faint scent of her mother still lingered on the pillow; a mixture of her soap, lotion, and perfume, with just a hint of vanilla. It was as familiar to Kate as the face she saw in the mirror every day, but it was only a ghost of the fragrance that permeated the air when her mother was alive. Kate pulled the pillow from under her head and nestled one end beneath her nose, pressing the length of it hard against her chest, trying somehow to fill the emptiness the loss of her mother had left behind. She lay there for a time, so hurt and yet so weary of the pain, silent tears painting faint tracks along her face. Her eyes eventually found the disorderly pile of books and she glanced through the titles, anything to distract her from the hurt, even for a moment. There were several books on civil law, a biography on Mary Queen of Scots and another on Winston Churchill, a collection of poems by Maya Angelou, a couple on the psychology of the criminal mind and then there was the lighter fare. There were novels by Kate Chopin, Arthur Golden, J.D. Robb, John Sandford, Kristin Hannah, and perched high on top, a book by Richard Castle. Kate pulled it down, wanting to know what her mother had been reading before she'd been so brutally slain; needing to wrap herself in every detail of her mother's life, lest she forget even the slightest nuance of who her mother was. The shiny yellow jacket was as smooth as silk beneath her fingertip as she traced the letters of the title and the author's name. Her fingers found the bookmark her mother had slipped in between the pages, a takeout menu from a Chinese delivery restaurant that she had been partial to. Opening the book, Kate was somewhat bewildered. Somehow this one thing looked like it was supposed to. The words marched across the page in perfect order, the dark letters bold against the crisp white pages, the margins sharp, framing the words with precision and clarity. For the first time in weeks there was something without chaos in her seemingly uncontrollable life.

Snuggled in her mother's bed, surrounded by her things, breathing in her scent and holding the book she'd been reading before she died, gave Kate a measure of comfort that had, thus far, been elusive. She started to read the words, thinking somewhere in the back of her mind, that she was going to finish one thing, complete something, that her mother's early demise had left undone. That thought faded, however, as she lost herself in his words. After a page or two she turned back to start at chapter one and her love affair with Richard Castle's words began.

She finished that book and sought out previous ones. At first it was only a place to hide, a fantasy world to visit when her own became too painful or tumultuous. But she eventually found the books offered more; a place where justice ruled, something she badly needed, and somehow a sense of hope. Over the years she found that his books seduced her as well; the cadence and tone of sexual fulfillment running rampant through his words. She was enthralled, drawn into a world that became real when her thoughts latched on to his imagination and the two melded, becoming a living breathing entity.

And then they met, and he was nothing like she'd imagined him to be. He was shallow, and childish, and egotistical. And yet…there was something about him that drew her in, even though she was resistant. Over the months and years that followed she'd come to realize that the man she first met was not the real Richard Castle, he was a persona, a mask, Castle hid behind, and the real man was actually more like her fantasy than she ever could have imagined at their first meeting.

Things had changed over the years. They'd been friends and then partners and then something more that neither of them had dared to name, they'd been together and apart and on the cusp of nowhere and everywhere at the same time, they'd hurt each other and they'd healed together, and somewhere along the way they'd found love. But whatever they had gone through, her love of his words had remained unaltered. Through the good times and the bad, she'd had his words, whether through his books, that she still devoured with the urgency of an iniquitous soul searching for absolution, or through the stories he told as they gathered around the murder board. She pretended exasperation but in actuality they mesmerized her, pulling her in, making her believe, if just for a few moments, in ghosts and zombies and alien abductions. Then the story would end; his voice and his words would fade, and she'd find herself back in the real world with a murder still to solve, wishing it could be a simple as his imagination had made it seem. Then there were times when his stories were less fantastical, when his narrative fit the evidence and explained it even further. Occasions when they were so in tune that he'd begin and she'd contribute, with her words and his, building off of one another until they completed each other's sentences, until they spoke the same words in unison, and the theory they formed was sure to be confirmed in reality. Those moments had been foreplay for her, the revelation her orgasm, and she always felt a lack of satisfaction in solving a case when he wasn't involved.

Now they slept side by side most nights, practically lived together for all intent purposes, and yet the words never grew old. He could have her wanting him just by saying her name. And in bed or on the sofa, the kitchen counter, or the floor, the washing machine, or the shower…wherever…well she'd never realized how _**much**_ of a turn on the words could be. Mostly, before Rick, it had been "harder", "faster", "more" or a litany of curses and prayers when the climax hit, and there were plenty of times when that was what they needed. But there were other times, many times, when Rick would murmur in her ear every little thing he was going to do to her—everything he wanted her to do to him. With that gravely bedroom whisper he could have her trembling without a touch, could have her aching for him without a kiss, and it was in those moments she believed he could make her come with only his words.


End file.
